* *
*
Rated: EVERYONE
Trudy hit the button to call the elevator. I kept looking around nervously hoping no-one would see us.
Strangely enough it was quiet and - apparently we were going to be able to investigate the secret floor.
"Nervous ?" she asked.
I nodded. "Yeah, I am a little too." she she added. Just then the elevator door opened.
I froze in my tracks.
"Come on ! It's not going to wait forever !"
Sure enough, the elevator door started to close and I hurriedly whistened inside.
She clunked her heavy bag full of metal tools against the side. "Ready ?" she said in a slow tone.
I nodded but bit my lip, I was nervous and I'm certain it showed.
We were on the 3rd floor. She hit the [1]. But just as it was going from [2] to [1] she hit the emergency stop. And - she was perfect, right on it. The green glow was even brighter peeking through the sealed elevator door.
"Now what ?" I asked.
"I don't expect it will open easily," she said and fished in her tools for something she was looking for. A crowbar !
"Hey, aren't you going to damage the elevator if you use that ?"
"No-one will know ! Stop being such a fussy missy !"
I kept quiet. She took the pronged part of the crowbar, jambed it in the opening of the door and pulled. The elevator door opened a bit, but then closed on her again causing her feet to slide.
"Gimme a hand will ya ?" she grunted trying again.
I didn't know what to do so I got behind her and reached around to stabilize her shoulders.
"That's fine. It'll open this time." she promised, then putting the wedge back in pulled on the handle to try again.
There was a groan of the elevator motor going a direction it wasn't intended, but suddenly the door opened an inch.
She slammed down the crowbar noisily and grabbed on the sides of the elevator door. It wouldn't budge. She backed away huffing and puffing.
"Here, you - " she began.
"I'll try." I finished for her.
I grabbed the elevator door and pulled it open. All those years of typing definitely built up the muscles in my arms and hands and it flung open suddenly, but in return the elevator made a whining sound and powered down, the lights winking off.
We couldn't leave the floor now even if we wanted to.
And it wasn't dark - the mysterious green light immediately shone bright in the elevator. Too bright to still make out what it was.
Trudy wasted no time and put the crowbar back in the bag, then she tentatively stepped forward, and sure enough, it was a corridor, so we weren't between floors. This was an ACTUAL floor, and a hidden one.
My pulse increased when I realized the light came and went in intervals, much like someone breathing. I hoped whatever it was that glowed green certainly wasn't some alien from another planet or something.
Traveling further down the corridor we finally came up to the source of the green light. There was this strange egg-shaped protrusion from the floor and it MOVED, a little rocking left and right and it pulsed the green light we saw earlier.
Trudy without even thinking of safety reached forward to touch it. I feared the worst and backed away.
She was quiet for a moment and I thought perhaps she was in pain, but no, she spoke marveling, "It's warm and spongy, that's all. But the warmth - "
That's as far as she got when we suddenly heard a screech, not from ahead or behind us but all AROUND us.
"Trudy - let - let go of - that - thing." my voice stammered in fear.
* * *
She did so and the screech turned into a burbling scary murmur, like hundreds of wings if they could speak.
I looked at the floor where the egg-shape was. I realized it was not protruding as if intruding into the building but that it was somehow PART of the building. I confirmed this fact by looking at the walls in this room and they were veinous.
I put my nose right up against them for a closer look. And, like the egg-thing, they were pulsing and WET.
"Trudy," I began. "I think this whole thing is alive."
"The room ?"
"Yeah, the room we're in, is not actually a room, but inside some - creature - of some kind."
"That's creepy."
I nodded, "Yeah and, maybe - we've seen enough for now ?" I was eager to leave this frightening place.
"Not me !" Trudy reached for a hammer and chisel.
"Trudy, no !" I reached forward to stop her, but she had already placed the chisel in the side of the wall."
If we thought the screech earlier was scary, suddenly the room started rotating like we were in a giant washing machine !
Trudy's tools flung out of her bag and bounced all around.
Sticky gray liquid quickly started filling up the room too !
"Let's get out of here !" I yelled to her, trying to find stable footing.
"Yeah. I've seen enough now !" she said, and suddenly crashed into me as we were being flipped all around in that topsy-turvey room.
We tumbled over and over again, finally finding we could walk, no, WADE, as the liquid was up to our hips. But we pulled free and ran to the elevator door, and fortunately, the power was back on.
We couldn't run fast enough and something behind us flashed like a white strobe light. I was too frightened to look and just focused on getting the hell out of here.
We piled into the elevator. Trudy frantically hit [1] on the elevator. The flashing light grew closer.
"Nono ! You have to - you put on the emergency stop, remember ?"
"Yeah okay !" she pulled the emergency stop handle the opposite direction. The elevator lurched but wouldn't move with the doors still open.
"Oh geez, we gotta close the doors, David !"
Fortunately there were flanged edges on my side so I grabbed them and slammed them closed.
Trudy hit [1] again and the elevator jerked hard as if it had fallen off of it's normal track, which I guess it did, but then moved up. Beneath us we heard something thud, as if we had stayed any later, it would've been upon us.
For a moment I thought it would travel up to crash through the floor of the elevator, but it didn't. I heard a mystifying eerie cry, definitely not animal or human, and then blessed silence.
I looked down to my pants to see whatever the gray liquid was, maybe we could analyze it, but it had evaporated completely without a trace.
My face was beaded up with sweat as well and Trudy looked like she had seen a ghost, and - maybe we did. We weren't certain what we saw.
It was only after we both got back to my place, and 2 hot cups of tea later, did we try to fathom just what the heck we saw and where we were.
We had just started to calm down when I suddenly remembered - Trudy's tools ! They were still on the hidden floor !
"That - THING - can have them !" Trudy replied taking a deep sip of tea. "There's no way I'm going back."
I nodded, but right then I wondered if Tricia would find out whose tools they were and track and trace it down to Trudy.
I told her my fears and she reluctantly agreed.
At some point later, we would have to return just to get her tools - nothing else - no messing or mucking about with anything else. And she mentioned she had a pellet gun, a BB gun, we would bring that and shoot it just in case we ran into anything hostile.
But first we were going to finish our tea.
END
OF CHAPTER 23
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